I have been learning that you can take Jesus’ actions in the Gospels and break them down into two groups. How Jesus responded to people, and how He conducted Himself towards people. When Jesus responded to people it was with grace. When Jesus conducted Himself towards people it was with truth.
For the last few days I focused on the idea that one of the key marks of the Body of Christ is that it is a community that cultivates grace. We not only need to be working at being full of grace ourselves, we need to be consciously working at making sure the environment we create in our life together is one that encourages and cultivates grace corporately. For the next few posts I want to look at the importance of the Body of Christ also being a community where living in the truth is seen, encouraged, and cultivated.
I think a good place to start thinking on this is 1 John 1:5-7 (NIV),
This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.
Note the connection between fellowship with God and one another and living by the truth. If we are not a people who live by the truth, whatever community we might have is not with God, nor really with one another. It is a lie, a counterfeit. Being a people who are living a life of truth is essential to being the Body of Christ. Without it, we are not it.
Key to understanding this passage is understanding what John meant by “truth,” “light” and “darkness.” When we talk about truth today the common meaning is facts, propositions, reason and logic. John’s meaning includes that but does not stop there. The truth is not merely something you know, it is something you live. It is something you walk. It is a way of life. Jesus said in John 14:6 (NIV), I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Living in the truth and walking in the light mean living a certain way. It means conducting ourselves in such a way that we are incarnating truth: meaning we are people who are committed to doing good, who are righteous and just in all we do, who are honest and truthful, whose lives are marked by wisdom, and a healthy fear and reverence for the God whom we love and serve.
The difference between walking in the light and walking in the darkness is living a life that shows you not only understand the Law, but you live it and produce its fruits. John writes in 1 John 2:9-11 (NIV),
Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him.
To know and not to do is not to know. If the truth we know does not lead to practice of that truth, the truth counts for nothing—it is darkness. Christianity, remember, is both rational and relational. It is a way of thinking that leads into a way of life. The proof of the saving power and presence of the Spirit in the Body of Christ is not in knowing the truth but in the living out of that truth life by those who believe it.
Jesus said that the world would know we are His disciples by seeing that we love one another. Love is the incarnation of grace and truth. Therefore one of the essential marks of the Body of Christ is that it is a community that cultivates truth. What I want to do in my next few posts is look at why this is essential to the Body of Christ, and then look at how we need to translate this truth into how we live and love so that we can have genuine fellowship with one another.
Learning To Be Full Of Grace And Truth. 